Hatred or Love?
by Original Wr1ter
Summary: Katniss hates Peeta. Peeta hates Katniss. They're sworn enemies... Or are they just afraid of their feelings? AU. They go to high school and the Hunger Games don't exist.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

I push Peeta.

"YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" I yell. The principal walks calmly toward us.

"It's not my fault," Peeta says defensively. I glance at the principal still making his way toward us.

"Whatever, dumbass. Now we're both in trouble."

"My mom's gonna kill me," he groans.

"So is mine," I say, though she probably won't even have the slightest reaction when the school calls her. Ever since my dad died - -

"No," Peeta starts, "My mom will literally beat me. All your mom fucking does is nothing! Not one single thing!" I turn away. No way am I letting this jerk see me cry.

He reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder, then stops.

"Look, I'm sorry," he tries to apologize, "It's just that home life for me is really bad and - -" the principal gets here.

"Both of you. My office, now."

The whole way there I don't even look at Peeta, but I can feel his stare. I'm still thinking about his apology. _Wow, that's the first time he actually said something nice to me._

Okay, so I don't _hate_ Peeta. Maybe I do. But this goes back to before we were even born. His dad was once in love with my mom, but she chose my dad. Peeta's dad isn't angry. In fact, he's very forgiving and understands. But I guess me and Peeta kinda took it upon ourselves to hold the grudge.

I know it sounds childish, but that's just how it's always been. His mom is cross towards mine, so that doesn't really help.

The principal sits at his desk and we sit across from him.

"You two have detention _together _for a week, as punishment." Peeta looks down and I roll my eyes. He always gives us detention tog - - - wait, together?

"What do you mean by _together_?" I ask. He smiles.

"You'll have detention with _each other_. No one else."

"But we hate each other!" I protest. His smile turns into a grin.

"Exactly. That'll teach you to egg my car. Do you have any idea how much it costs?"

"Fuck you," I mutter.

"You know, I could easily expel you, but I enjoy making kids suffer."

"Spoken like the words of a true middle-aged-grumpy-teacher with no social life," I say.

"That does it," he starts, "I'm including the weekend. I'll meet you two in the classroom at two-thirty when school ends." He leaves to the front desk. I realize that the whole time here, Peeta didn't utter a word.

* * *

We walk back to class. It's strange. We've sworn our hatred towards each other, yet here we are, together, walking. And it's in silence. Something like this deserves a medal.

Lost in my bitter thoughts, I barely notice as a tear traces my cheek. Peeta grabs my arm and we stop.

"Katniss…" he says. I can't look at him. I won't look at him. I refuse to look at him. I hate feeling helpless or embarrassed.

"I'm sorry about the things I said about your mom. I was really angry, and like I mentioned before, home life isn't too good."

"It's - - it's fine." My voice cracks. He looks at me, concerned.

"It's fine!" I yell. I storm off to class.

"Katniss." He calls. I don't look back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

When school ends I head to Mrs. Browne's room for detention. She makes me and Peeta do some work sheets and that's about it.

The next day I arrive at school and Madge hurries over to me.

"So?" she asks. "How did it go yesterday?" I shrugged.

"Mrs. Browne made us fill out some work sheets and that's about it." She rolls her eyes.

"No, I mean what happened with Peeta!"

"What do you mean 'what happened with Peeta?'" she opens her mouth to say something, but then the bell rings.

"We have to go to class," I mutter. In the halls I see Peeta goofing off with Gale and Cato. He seems to totally forget about what happened yesterday. _Good. _I think. _ Everything's back to normal. _And then he turns around and looks at me. I turn away quickly and head to homeroom.

* * *

Me and Peeta sit in detention while Mrs. Browne rummages through her desk.

"Shit," she mutters. She gets up and heads toward the door.

"I left a folder in the teacher's office. Don't do anything illegal while I'm gone." Me and Peeta exchange a look and then burst out laughing when she leaves. Then we stop. Wow, this is starting to get scary. First Peeta gives me an apology and now we're laughing together.

He notices me tense up.

"Katniss, -" I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Listen, Peeta, just drop it. I don't know why you keep trying to apologize for something that already happened." We're silent for ten minutes. I look at the clock. _Forty-five more minutes until detention is over._ Seven more minutes pass.

"What's taking Mrs. Browne so long," I mutter. Twenty minutes later she comes back and excuses us.

* * *

"Hey Katniss, wanna come to the park with me?" Prim asks.

"Why do you want to go to the park?" I ask. Usually Prim stays locked up inside, reading books about healing and stuff. She wants to be a doctor when she's older.

She blushes.

"Um, no reason. Could you just walk me there? I'm not aloud to go alone."

"Sure." On the way to the park, we walk past a bunch of houses. Suddenly I hear screaming.

"What's that?" Prim asks. She hears it too.

"I'm not sure," I say. "Stay here; I'm gonna go check it out." I sprint towards the direction of the noise and crouch near the window, trying to find out what's going on.

"You need to stop messing around with that Everdeen girl and focus on your grades!" Oh shit. It's Peeta and his mom. I suddenly hear a loud bang, and flinch. _I can't just stand around and do nothing. _Acting on instinct, I pick up a decent sized rock and throw it at the window. His mother comes to investigate, and I run back to Prim.

"Did you find out what was going on?" she asks.

"Um, yeah. A mom was just yelling at a little kid." I can't tell Prim the truth. She shrugs.

"Okay." With that, we continue walking.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Peeta and I have English together. From across the room I can see a bruise on the side of his face.

"For this assignment, we will spend the next week writing an essay on someone. You will interview this person and get to meet with them during class for the following week. As long as you don't goof off, you can choose to work with who ever you want to." People start walking around the room and soon all that's left is me, Peeta, and a girl named Glimmer.

"If you don't have a partner, you can work with me!" The English teacher concluded happily. Peeta and I made eye contact and immediately agreed on a decision, leaving Glimmer to face embarrassment.

"'Never thought I'd get stuck with you," I muttered.

"Same here," he replied grimly. We sit on the floor.

"So," I start, "What's your favorite color?"

"Seriously, Katniss?"

"Fine!" I exclaim, annoyed. "How many times a day does your mom beat you?" He glares at me, and I hold his gaze. When he leaves the room, that's when I realize I took it too far.

* * *

During detention, Mrs. Browne leaves again.

"Peeta," I start. _Great, now I'm the one trying to apologize._ He cuts me off and takes me by surprise.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

"What was me?" I ask.

"You threw the rock. The rock that went through our window." Every thought inside of me screams to deny it. To deny anything he says. To deny the fact that I helped him.

Instead I just stay eyes search my face.

"It _was _you." I don't know what to say. I should've just left everything alone. I shouldn't have tried to see what was wrong.

I should've never thrown that rock.

"…Why? Why did you do it? Why did you try to help me?" I find my voice.

"I - - I don't know." I stutter. His eyes grow soft and it makes me angry. "Maybe it would've been better if I had just left it alone." I snap. He flinches and I feel sorry for him, which is stupid, because I hate his freaking guts.

"Whenever I try to talk to you, you push me away!" he exclaims. I snort.

"You've only been trying to talk to me for like two days."

"So?"

"So what?"

"Well, you could at least answer me. Especially now that we're working on a project together." I turn my gaze to the front of the room. He sighs.

"Look, don't you think we should just… stop fighting?" That last part takes me by surprise. I turn to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Arguing with each other is getting really old. Let's just… be friends." I raise an eyebrow.

"After sixteen years, you want to become friends?"

"Sure, why not? We can give it a try."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_Knock knock._

"Prim, go get the door!" I yelled tiredly. It was Saturday and I wanted to sleep in.

"It's Madge!" Prim yelled back. I groaned. Why did Madge always wake up so early?

"Hey Katniss," she smirked, sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Come back later," I groaned, throwing an arm over my face.

"Wait," she said urgently. "I heard you and Peeta are working on an english assignment together." I immediately sat up.

"Who told you that?"

"Glimmer."

"Of course," I said, rolling my eyes.

"So, what's going on with you and Peeta? Is he into you? Are you into him?"

"Slow down," I said, my head spinning. "Nothing's going on with me and Peeta. The only reason we teamed up was because we were pretty much the only two people left."

"If you say so..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped. She just giggled.

* * *

"Omigod this would look so cute on you," squealed Madge, holding a blue tank top. We were in the mall shopping.

I just shrugged. "You try it on," I told her. "I'm not really in the mood to look at clothes." Madge frowned.

"Is this about Peeta?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know," I muttered.

"What?" she asked.

"I don't know!" I exclaimed. Madge tilted her head, then shrugged.

"Let's get out of here," she said finally. "I'm hungry." As we walked out of the store, I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw Peeta, quietly browsing through a bookstore.

"So where do you wanna - - " Madge broke off, following my gaze.

"Holy shit. Go talk to him!" she whispered fiercely.

"Are you crazy?" I hissed. "Why?"

"Just go!"

"No way. You're out of your mind if you think I'd actually just go up to him and start talking."

"Fine!" Madge sighed. "Then let's just go in there and buy a book." She walked toward the bookstore, but I didn't budge.

"Well?" she asked. "Are you coming?"

"Whatever," I snapped nervously. When we got in there I hid in the nearest aisle I could find. Madge raised an eyebrow and I gave her the most threatening _fuck you _look I could muster.

"Don't do anything stupid," I warned.

"LIKE WHAT?" she asked loudly. "HEY KATNISS COME LOOK AT THIS BOOK I FOUND!"

"Shut the fuck up!" I groaned.

"Oh, hi Peeta," she said, turning around. Peeta grew stiff. "We didn't know you were here, did we Katniss?" she continued innocently.

"Um..." I started. Peeta looked deeply confused.

"We were just leaving anyways," Madge said with a quick wink at me.

"Oh." Peeta frowned. "Well, uh... it was nice seeing you, I guess," he concluded.

"WELL IF THAT'S ALL, WE'LL BE GOING NOW," Madge continued in her loud voice. Peeta started to walk away. Madge must've noticed the look of disappointment on my face because she gave me a sly grin. I sighed.

"Peeta, wait," I said, flinching at the mixture of both yearning and reluctance in my voice. He turned around expectantly.

"Yes?"

"Could we talk for a moment?"

"Sure."

"I'll leave you two alone, then," Madge giggled.

"Listen, uh..." My voice trailed off. Why the hell did I ask him if we could talk? This is going nowhere!

"Um," I started again. Great start.

"So about the English project..." What about it?! Peeta looked at me with his water blue eyes full of concern. _Water blue eyes? _What is wrong with me?

"Are you okay?" He asked wearily. My eyes slightly widened in surprise.

"Um, yeah I'm fine... I just forgot when the project was due."

"I think she said it was due in two weeks," he said uncomfortably.

"Oh," I said in reply. We stood there in an awkward silence.

"Um..." Okay, I needed to stop with the _umms _and _uhhs_. I sound like an idiot. I really do. I should've just fucking said goodbye already, but for some reason I couldn't. My voice wouldn't let me. My legs wouldn't move either. _You want to get away from Peeta, don't you? _I asked myself angrily. But the truth was, I didn't.

I didn't want to get away from him.

In that moment, I realized I was falling in love with Peeta Mellark.


End file.
